How many iPads will Apple sell?

The Street looked at that $499 price point and hastily revised its numbers

Steve Jobs with his iPad. Photo: Michael Copeland

“It finally gives the right form,” writes Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner in what is so far the most lyrical analyst note on Apple’s new iPad, “to leisurely functions long trapped, like the Frog Prince, in the body of a late-20th century office productivity tool.”

Yet after all that and more (“Copycat devices will pullulate in iPad’s wake”), Reiner’s estimates of iPad sales are among the lowest — a mere 1.1 million in fiscal 2010. Others were not so conservative. Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty has Apple AAPL selling 9 million iPads in calendar 2011 at an average sales price of $660, adding $5.9 billion to its bottom line. That’s within striking distance of her estimate for the entire iPod line ($6.8 billion).